Evaluation of the Antibacterial Activity of Citrus Juices: An In Vitro Study

Nahla Tawfik,Siba Al-Haliem,Waidulla Al-Ani

doi:10.33899/rden.2010.9030

Abstract

Aims: This work aimed at determining the antibacterial activity of three Citrus Juice on Staphylococ-cus aureus, Proteus vulgaris and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Materials and Methods: The antibacteri-al activities of juices of three types of Citrus (C.) fruit, C. limon (lemon), C. aurantium (bitter orange) and C. paradisi (grapefruit), against some gram positive and gram negative bacteria using four concen-trations of these juices by agar diffusion method with measurement of diameter of the zone of inhibi-tion around the extracts. Results: The results confirmed the presence of anti bacterial activity of the Citrus juice. The highest inhibition zone (18 mm) was observed with a 10% concentration of C. para-dises juice on Staphylococcus aureus, but Proteus vulgaris and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were resis-tant. C. limon and C. aurantium juice at 10% and 5% concentration gave positive results with bacteri-cidal effects on the three tested bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus, Proteus vulgaris and Pseudomonas aeruginosa). The zones of inhibition of C. limon were 10, 12 and 13mm for 5% and 15, 21 and 20 mm for 10% respectively. For C. aurantium, they were 18, 19 and 20 mm for 5% concentration and 16, 19 and 19 mm for 10% concentration respectively. Those effects were better than those produced by stan-dard antibiotic disc used for comparison. Conclusions: The use of different concentrations of Citrus juice extracts had an effective antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Proteus vulgaris and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Highlights

Medicinal plants are important elements of traditional medicine in virtually all cultures
Results of comparative antibacterial activity of Citrus extracts with standard commercial antibiotics disc were shown on Table (I)
The antibacterial activity was observed in 10% and 5% (v/v) concentrations only but there were no antimicrobial activities in 3.3% and 2.5% concentrating for the three types of Citrus juices

Summary

Introduction

Medicinal plants are important elements of traditional medicine in virtually all cultures. Citrus fruits are acidic fruits which contain healthy nutritional content that works wonders for the body. Hammers et al 1999 studied the effect of essential oils from C. aurantium, C. limon, C. paradisi and many other plant oils and extracts and found that the minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) were between 5-2% (v/v). Hayes and Markovic in (2002) investigated the antimicrobial properties of lemon and found that lemon possesses significant antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Candida albicans. Adedeji et al 2007(5) found that Citrus extract form lemon, lime and grape fruit had antibacterial activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, proteus, klebsiella, Escherichia coli and that lime and lemon juice had better antibacterial activity and compared favorably to the commercial antibiotic disc

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion